Is there really media bias?

[81artmonk]

81Artmonk, check this out:

http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.com/2008/narrative_cabletv_contentanalysis.php?cat=1&media=7

Content Analysis

By the Project for Excellence in Journalism

For all the time it has to fill, roughly 18 hours of original programming each day, cable news has become in many ways a niche medium that offers viewers narrow formula rather than a broad-based agenda of the events of the day.

That formula in 2007 was a combination of controversial opinion, a dose of tabloid-tinged crime and celebrity, edgy personalities, and, during the daytime, a focus on the immediate.

In emphasis what is defined as significant amid this formula varies significantly, too, by the channel one watches, the time of day and to some extent the program. More than any on other medium we have studied, the definition of news differs depending on the outlet.

• In general, cable news focuses much of its time on three or four topics a day and relies on wires and brief “tell stories” for much of the rest of the news.
  
• There are distinct differences among the different channels, only some of which reflects the demographic differences of their audiences.
  
• MSNBC, at least in terms of time spent, was indeed the place for politics in 2007 — by nearly double over its rivals in the percentage of time studied (28% vs. 12% on CNN and 15% on Fox News). Fox, in turn, spent less time on the war in Iraq than the others (10% vs. 18% on MSNBC and 16% on CNN). And it was more oriented to crime, celebrity and the media than its rivals (28% vs. 19% on MSNBC and 16% on CNN).
  
• The host-oriented culture of cable, particularly in prime time, now translates into notably different agendas and character even among programs on the same network. Not only does Lou Dobbs have a news agenda of his own on CNN, but so does Anderson Cooper versus Wolf Blitzer on CNN, and Shepard Smith versus Brit Hume on Fox News.
  
• In a medium that relies heavily on being “live” and not on taped and edited packages prepared by correspondents, MSNBC is the most ephemeral and live-oriented of all, despite its connection to a broadcast news division or perhaps because it must borrow correspondents from its NBC sibling. Only 10% of time studied was made up of taped, edited packages, versus 45% on CNN and 28% on Fox.
  

Bolded and underlined for your reading pleasure. ~ Z

It doesn't state how little was spent on iraq, during the worst parts or now that it has quieted down?? if it was during the worst parts I would applaud FOX.

I would also like to point out, my main problem with CNN MSNBC OR CBS or another, is that they DON'T THINK that they are biased or polictical. When asked about it, they will 1. deny it 2. say they aren't 3. laugh

[81artmonk]

because Democrats are all referred to as Liberals by the right and they don't even use the word democrat...while the left uses the party name of republican and doesn't call all republicans, conservatives or neocons...the right is the label using machine.

:rotflmao:

[Zguy28]

It doesn't state how little was spent on iraq, during the worst parts or now that it has quieted down?? if it was during the worst parts I would applaud FOX.

All of last year.

[dfitzo53]

People have personal biases. I don't think anyone would dispute that. It's one reason that ethnographies (studies of other cultures by anthropologists/historians) usually come with a description of the author's upbringing in the front. It's not because the author thinks you particularly care about his or her past, it's so the reader can get an idea of what sort of bias the author is bringing into the piece. Foreign cultures can strike us as extremely odd sometimes, so it's crucial to know what perspective the author is taking based on his or her own life. Anthropologists have accepted that there's no way to truly remove one's own bias from the writing, so the next best thing is to identify it from the start.

News outlets are, when you boil them down, groups of people working to report what they see around them. If you get a group of people with a similar bias together I don't think there's any question that what they report will be biased. It's unavoidable. The only question is how deep that bias runs in terms of their reporting.